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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24214804">Standing Guard/ Falling Apart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALittleWren/pseuds/ALittleWren'>ALittleWren</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Neighbours (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:41:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,649</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24214804</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALittleWren/pseuds/ALittleWren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Considering the long road they had taken to be together, Terese had assumed she already knew everything there was to know about Paul. As it happened, their relationship had thrown up some surprises.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Paul Robinson/Terese Willis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Standing Guard/ Falling Apart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi there!</p><p>This fic is intended as a companion piece to my other fic *Worthy of Love Anyway. It's kind of the opposite side of the same coin. It's more character study than plot so there are no references to current canon, making it spoiler free.<br/>Also, a massive thanks to foreveroptimist, who's lovely fic 'The way you love me.' helped me finally finish this.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Considering the long road they had taken to be together, Terese had assumed she already knew everything there was to know about Paul. As it happened, their relationship had thrown up some surprises. None of them had been particularly major, rather, through living alongside Paul, sharing in his successes and failings, various pieces of the complicated jigsaw that was her husband had finally been put together. Over the course of their relationship, she'd come to a whole new understanding of who exactly Paul Robinson was.</p><p>From her vantage point behind her desk, Terese looked across her office to her husband. He was sat at the table, engrossed in his laptop. It was getting late and they were supposed to be heading home soon, but first, he needed to finish his preparations for a meeting he was having tomorrow morning. These preparations had been made last week after the meeting was initially arranged, but Paul had wanted to make sure they were perfect. They probably already were, but he didn't like to leave anything up to chance.</p><p>Before Terese had come to Erinsborough, she'd known about Paul purely from his reputation as a ruthless operator- a man with a relentless work ethic. This was something she understood, respected, even and when they'd started working together, she'd witnessed this dedication for herself. He was a perfectionist, ambitious and cutthroat, always looking to protect his own interests. This was often to his detriment, though. He protected all the things he had to lose with such a single-minded determination that he didn't realise all he was losing in the process. He was steadfast in his convictions, and heaven help anyone who tried to convince him he was wrong. He believed what he believed wholeheartedly and without doubt. He would wage war to defend it, fully prepared to fight to the bitter end- even when surrounded by people telling him all was lost. For a man with so many complexities and contradictions, though, his beliefs were surprisingly simple.</p><p>He believed in control.</p><p>Control over himself, his business, and other people. It was never intended to seem manipulative or stifling, though. His fierce protectiveness might often do more harm than good, but he genuinely  thought it was the best way to stop others from hurting him. The thing most people didn't understand was that it was grounded in fear- he was trying to protect himself from loss and judgement and that uncomfortable feeling of free-falling when everything descends into chaos around you.<br/>
Terese understood it well, she often battled the same feelings. A marriage between two control-freaks had the potential to be a disaster, but somehow it worked for them. There'd been a few issues but, for the most part, their similarities gave them a unique insight into how their respective minds worked- to understand each other in a way nobody else did.</p><p>He also believed it was important to protect yourself from other people.</p><p>In a way, this was the thing that drove his work ethic- things were less likely to betray you than people. In his mind, the status and the trappings and the shiny things acted as a shield, and this shield was to be maintained whatever it took. If that happened to be less than ethical, so be it.  As far as Paul was concerned a little 'moral ambiguity' was actually quite useful, an extra layer to deter people, just in case.<br/>
He's paid a high price for this protection. All his relationships had suffered because of it, as partners, children, and grandchildren all voiced their objections, attempting to change him, to forcibly mould him into the kind of person they thought he should be.<br/>
Terese had vowed to herself to never try and change him. She'd known exactly the kind of man he was right from the very beginning. And yet, she'd still fallen in love with him, she'd still put her reservations aside to have a relationship with him.<br/>
That wasn't to say she didn't find him infuriating at times. His underhanded ways frequently had her tearing her hair out- before she'd met Paul, Terese had never realised that you could love someone so dearly but still find them <em>so annoying</em>. It wasn't necessarily The Bad Things he did that annoyed her (she could often see the logic in his methods) it was the fact that he lied to her about it.<br/>
What that said about her, Terese dreaded to think, but she was determined that she would always accept and love him, flaws and strengths and all.</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>
      <em>
        <em>Almost ironically, Paul also believed in the importance of trust.</em>
      </em>
    </em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>
      <em>
        <em>His penchant for dodgy dealings had achieved its main objective- people mostly kept their distance, believing him untrustworthy. Terese personally thought it was a shame. Underneath the tough, brusque exterior, lay a thoughtful rather quirky man, fragile and broken, reluctant to trust others in case that trust was broken. For some reason, at some point, Paul had decided to place his trust in her, first as a colleague, then as a best friend, and now as his wife. Terese wasn't sure exactly what she'd done to earn that trust, though (although she could list several things she'd done to break it). Maybe he saw that, underneath the surface, she was fragile and broken too- in that sense, they were kindred spirits.<br/>
Trust had been a constant factor in their relationship; they'd spent years in a constant cycle of gaining each other's trust, only to take it in turns to break it. These days things were slightly less tumultuous, and Terese trusted Paul with everything without even so much as a second thought. As far as she could tell, Paul felt the same way, something she considered a great privilege. She'd tried to convince him multiple times that it was okay to trust others, to let them in, and show them just how big a heart he had, but he always refused. He preferred to reserve that side of himself for only the people he trusted most-usually his family.</em>
      </em>
    </em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>
      <em>
        <em>Because, most importantly, above anything else, Paul believed in family.</em>
      </em>
    </em>
  </em>
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    <em>
      <em><em>It was evident in so many different ways. It was in his father's battered folio that he carried around with him every day. A constant sign of his need for Jim's approval, for his dad to be proud of him, even though it was too late to hear Jim say the words himself. It was in the way he kept a box of his grandmother's old recipes in their kitchen, a selection of dinners and treats she'd made for Paul whilst he was growing up, to be made when Paul was missing her gentle, yet firm guidance. It was in the way he subtly introduced traditions of his mother's into their lives; sponge cake with ice cream on the top for birthdays, and giving everyone a pair of socks at Christmas, gentle reminders of a woman he had loved dearly and still grieved for, even almost fifty years later. It was also in the way he didn't completely believe he had the right to grieve for Cameron, believing as he did, that he'd somehow had a part to play in the events that led to his son's death.<br/>
Paul reserves his love for only a select handful of people, be when he does love you, he pulls his whole heart up to the surface. Terese had spent so long denying her feelings for him, scared of having her heartbroken, and scared that if that happened, she'd lose him from her life completely. It wasn't until she finally let go of that fear that she realised how </em>completely<em> he loved people. This was the man who'd sat up with her all night after Joshua died- holding her as she cried until she'd eventually fallen asleep. Who'd refused to leave his granddaughter's side at the hospital for days on end, despite his own exhaustion, just in case she woke up in the night and was scared. Who'd faced his demons, long-buried because they were too painful to consider, in order to save his son. He dedicated himself completely to the people he loved- never expecting anything in return, or in Terese's case, not expecting her to love him back. Sure, that dedication could sometimes manifest itself in the wrong ways; his need for control and to protect his loved ones from any kind of hurt or danger frequently got him into trouble, but his intentions were almost always good. </em></em>
    </em>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <em>
      <em>
        <em>Across the room, Paul sighed heavily, bringing Terese out of her reverie. He looked up at her and their eyes met. She'd never been completely able to decide exactly what colour his eyes were. Sometimes they looked brown, others more of a green, sometimes a mixture between the two. When she'd first met him, Terese had thought his eyes looked cold, maybe even a little calculating. These days they seemed anything but. They looked at her with such intensity, and love, such dedication and <em>trust<em> that it made her heart beat a little faster. He could make her feel as though there was nobody else in the world except for two of them.<br/>
She rose from her desk, walking over to him and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, her chin resting on the top of his head.<br/>
"Not going well?" She asked. He sighed again,<br/>
"I've hit a dead end."<br/>
"Maybe you've just prepared enough already?" She suggested lightly.<br/>
"Do you think so?" he asked, to which Terese hummed in response.<br/>
"Let's go home." She said. Paul took her hand in his, lifting it to lips and gently brushing a kiss over Terese's fingers. He didn't respond but, still holding her hand in his, closed his laptop and rose from his chair to face her.<br/>
"You know, I'd be lost without you." He said. Terese smiled at the compliment, squeezing his hand gently,<br/>
"Me too."</em></em></em>
      </em>
    </em>
  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading! Feedback is always welcome.<br/>Just in case you were curious, the reference to the sponge cake with ice cream was taken directly from episode 7841, when Paul was telling Steph about his mother. x</p></blockquote></div></div>
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